Post by moira on Jul 14, 2008 22:10:14 GMT 2
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
We might as well have her most famous one first. It is memorable:
Resume
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Many of her poems show the kind of disillusion
and weariness that this one does;
it does not give anything away about the speaker.
It seems to me characteristic of her:
A Certain Lady
Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
I'd paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.
Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true --
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ...
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.
I do like the self-mocking ones.
My next choice is to show that Parker really wants to write epigrams (in the Martial tradition):
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying ---
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
The above reminds me of some eighteenth century women satirists,
e.g., Laetitia Pilkington. Dorothy Parker had a real gift for the aphorism
(much practiced in the 18th century), the quotable memorable quip that
contains an ironic nugget of truth, only hers are flatter and include
the note of grimness that is found in her too.
Famous one:
"Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses."
And one I like:
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force."
One more. I like its poignance:
Of a Woman, Dead Young
(J. H.. 1905-1930)
If she had been beautiful, even,
Or wiser than women about her,
Or had moved with a certain defiance;
If she had had sons at her sides,
And she with her hands on their shoulders,
Sons, to make troubled the Gods --
But where was there wonder in her?
What had she. better or eviler,
Whose days were a pattering of peas
From the pod to the bowl in her lap?
That the pine tree is blasted by lightning,
And the bowlder split raw from the mountain,
And the river dried short in its rushing
That I can know, and be humble.
But that They who have trodden the stars
Should turn from Their echoing highway
To'trample a daisy, unnoticed
In a meadow of small, open flowerss
Where is Their triumph in that?
Where is Their pride, and Their vengeance?
*****************
It's easy to find sites on Dorothy Parker as she's one of those early to mid-20th century women who remain known. The following site has good biography but notice how many of the poems originally put on the site have been pulled "at the insistence of the copyright holder." You can see her liberal politics here too:
www.americanpoems.com/poets/parker/
This one gives details from her private life and also the typical known poems:
www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/dparker.html
I have read her hilarious send-up of Winnie-the-Pooh, "Tonstant Weader Fwowed up" is the famous close. While I suppose, she's sometimes not fair, she makes sound points in these famous acerbic reviews for the New Yorker.
I think her "Big Blonde" one of the great short stories; I still remember it.
Ellen
Thanks for your post, Ellen -- great selections! But I just can't pass up the opportunity to share my personal favorite of Parker's
poems, one that I read more than once in the wake of some of my girlfriends' conquests, those of a sort I never seemed to make. : )
One Perfect Rose
A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet--
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
I'm actually not sorry to have ended up with a man who's more romantic than rich, but I still love the razor edge of this poem!
Evie
Oh, bravo.
And let's not forget that it was Ms. Parker who said, on entering a cocktail party,
"If all the people in this room were laid end to end, I wouldn't be surprised."
Gail W
Thanks for choosing Parker, Ellen. I've admired her skill but didn't realize she had written such very serious poems. This one is compelling in its unusual (dactylic) rhythm and in its mystery. I wonder what was the cause of this woman's death? --someone seems to be directly blamed for it here.
Annie
The meter varies between dactylic and anapestic, but it is predominantly triple. A good one to give to a class studying
meter to figure out.
If she had been beautiful, even, a-
Or wiser than women about her, a-
Or had moved with a certain defiance; a
If she had had sons at her sides, d
And she with iJer hands on their shoulders, a-
Sons, to make troubled the Gods -- d
But where was there wonder in her? a-
What had she. better or eviler, d
Whose days were a pattering of peas a-
From the pod to the bowl in her lap? a
That the pine tree is blasted by lightning, a
And the bowlder split raw from the mountain, a
And the river dried short in its rushing a
That I can know, and be humble. d
But that They who have trodden the stars a
Should turn from Their echoing highway a-
To'trample a daisy, unnoticed a-
In a meadow of small, open flowerss a
Where is Their triumph in that? d
Where is Their pride, and Their vengeance? d
Very interesting metrically. Many of the line's I've labeled a(napestic) begin with an iamb. These are denoted by a-.
Dear Annie, Sam, and all,
My general feeling is that Parker's impetus is like that of Martial and her natural form the epigram of which the most characteristic I can think of is Pope's:
I am his Highness' dog at Kew,
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Rumor hath it that this was carved onto the collar of the Prince of Wales's dog at the time.
However, I've come across these disillusioned self-deprecating kind of lyrics (which usually or the ones I've seen give away nothing specific about the speaker), and occasionally what Ivor Winters (I think it was he) praised in a famous essay on plain verse (though both title and thesis escape me this morning).
She is best known for the aphorisms, but she can write tragedy (as in her story "Big Blonde").
Ellen
The subjectivity of scansion often makes me think I don't know what I am doing, LOL. Which may be the case.
Anyway, I just wanted to post this Parker poem, really, and wish everyone a happy summer:
For A Lady Who Must Write Verse
Unto seventy years and seven,
Hide your double birthright well-
You, that are the brat of Heaven
And the pampered heir to Hell.
Let your rhymes be tinsel treasures,
Strung and seen and thrown aside.
Drill your apt and docile measures
Sternly as you drill your pride.
Show your quick, alarming skill in
Tidy mockeries of art;
Never, never dip your quill in
Ink that rushes from your heart.
When your pain must come to paper,
See it dust, before the day;
Let your night-light curl and caper,
Let it lick the words away.
Never print, poor child, a lay on
Love and tears and anguishing,
Lest a cooled, benignant Phaon
Murmur, "Silly little thing!"
Jilly, the back-handed way of referring to myths that arose around Sappho is revealing. She doesn't instance Sappho directly, but she becomes there in the poem. In the 18th century a common story to tell about Sappho was how she committed suicide because Phaon rejected her. I believe (not sure) Pope wrote a poem about this (pre-Eloisa to Abelard heroides type).
She's going strongly against the autobiographical melancholy thrust of modern poetry:
Show your quick, alarming skill in
Tidy mockeries of art;
Never, never dip your quill in
Ink that rushes from your heart
Anapests are often popular, especially when turned to satiric use. A very popular poem in the 18th century was Christopher Anstley's New Bath Guide, mostly or often in anapestic narrative couplets. They tell satiric stories. One problem is this apparent lightness of touch allows readers to see what's written as trivial or not seriously meant.
Ellen